


What I showed you in the Dark

by SimplerontheInside



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, and vaguely threatening conversations in abandoned subway stations, as romantic as the Darkling is gonna get tbh, kind of romantic?, there are trains
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-21 07:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3682437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplerontheInside/pseuds/SimplerontheInside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alina runs. Aleksander Morozova chases.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm playing with the idea of a modern-Ravka AU.
> 
> The Grisha all have their powers. The Darkling is a politician, head of the second army. Like in Shadow and Bone, Alina has been training as a Grisha since her powers were discovered. Mal recently reappeared in her life, an army deserter, and confronted her with the truth of what the Darkling is up to.
> 
> I think that's all the catch-up you need.

Aleksander Morozova is a powerful man. Alina Starkov is fully aware of this fact. But even he is not above the perfectly controlled chaos of the Os Alta Underground. At least, that’s what she tells herself, as her train lurches out from the station two storeys underground, burrowing it’s way from the rows of stylish flats and gardens of the inner city and towards the airport, where Mal must be waiting even now, tickets in one hand and a battered duffel in the other. It was a habit they’d formed young, moving from foster home to foster home, living with a packed bag tucked neatly under the bed.

She concentrates on the bag on her lap now, as the train rattles onward, running her fingers in nervous circles over the worn canvas. Inside is her laptop, a toothbrush, two changes of clothes. All the cash she could find in the flat another man had paid for. She’d left the gifts behind. The new shoes, the dresses, the glittering watch worth twice the student debt he’d waved away the day after they met.

He might be powerful, and he might be wealthy beyond imagining, but he’s just a man. Alina reminds herself of this, as the redhead sitting across the aisle stares a little too long, and the almost-familiar woman by the door glances her way, all too casual. Morozova is just a man. He can’t stop trains.

Shadows play on the floor, light appearing and disappearing in patches, as the train weaves it’s way between tunnels and open air. One moment she’s looking out the window over red-roofed houses, the next there is nothing but black. Alina can’t help but hold her breath in the tunnels. There’s something about the dark - the unpredictability of shadows - that is all too familiar.

“Excuse me, are you alright?”

The voice jolts Alina out of her thoughts, and she blames exhaustion for the way she jumps. It’s certainly not paranoia.

The young woman looks apologetic, sending Alina a sympathetic smile from under her oversized floppy sunhat. She must be a tourist, breaking the unspoken rule of the underground: no talking on the train. Alina swallows hard and tries to return the smile, keenly aware that she hasn’t slept since the day before yesterday, the shadows under her eyes almost bruise like.

“Just dozing off. Long day.”

“Oh, sorry.” The tourist doesn’t look like she believes it, her eyes flicking towards Alina’s shaking hands, clutching the bag in her lap just a little too tightly.

Alina pointedly pulls out her headphones, letting her iPod shuffle through songs she barely hears. The tourist gets the hint, turning back to her own phone.

Alina leans back, trying to adopt a casual expression. She stares at the map across the aisle, counting the stops as they fly by. Ten to the airport. Nine. Eight. Seven. Across the aisle the redhead sits perfectly still, staring down at his book. He hasn’t turned a page since she boarded.

They are not watching her, Alina tells herself. She is less than five stops away now, just five brief stops from Mal and freedom. They will fly away, to somewhere safe and warm, where she will forget the man who has offered her the world, and who could easily kill her for throwing it away.

They enter another tunnel, vast and dark. And then, one by one, the other passengers begin to move, to whisper, rising to mutters. That’s when she takes the headphones off, and realizes they’re slowing down.

Across the aisle, the redhead avoids her gaze.

Alina takes a deep breath, pulse pounding in her ears, nails digging into her palms and leaving little pink half circles of worry behind. For a brief moment she wills a maintenance announcement to play, a calm pre-recorded apology for the rare delay. It doesn’t come.

“Does this happen often?” the tourist girl leans over, poking her head into Alina’s space, eyes wide with curiosity. Around them, cell phones are emerging, as other passengers attempt calls.

“I don’t know.” Alina says. Her voice sounds wooden, even to her.

Behind her, a businessman mutters about lack of service. A baby starts crying in another car, the sound filtering in through the cracked windows, thin and frail. Teenagers kneel on seats, trying to peer out into the dark.

Only Alina is still in the growing confusion. She can see them now, clear of her own hopeful delusion. The woman by the door, sending off a text even as the rest of the train is cut off from the network. The redhead across from her, some sort of etheralki no doubt, holding the train in place with a clenched fist.

Morozova would call them bodyguards, security for his most valuable asset. But Alina knows them for what they are now, and the thought sends shivers down her spine.

Mobsters. Thieves. Killers. Morozova’s Grisha.

Mal had shown her the files last night. Names and pictures, news articles and police reports. Crimes that should have been reported. Numbers that didn’t add up. People who should not be dead. People who had gotten in the way.

She tastes blood. She’s bitten through the inside of her lip. Lips that had kissed him, for the first time, only the night before.

She had wanted him. Trusted him. And then she’d seen the blood dripping from his hands, and she’d run from him.

She had been foolish to think he wouldn’t take chase.

The phone in Alina’s hand buzzes the same time the doors slide open with a hiss, letting in cold, forgotten air. The message is a command in four simple words.

_This is your stop._

He doesn’t sign. He doesn’t have to. Alina gives the poor tourist girl a soft smile as she stands, slinging her runaway bag over her shoulder. And then, before anyone can stop her, she steps through the train doors and out into the dark.

 

 ...

 

“Hello Alina.” She hears his voice first, as the train whizzes away behind her, swallowed up by the dark. It takes most of the light with it, leaving the two of them wreathed in shadow.

This is how he likes it, surrounded by darkness.

“Sit,” he orders, stepping forward so his outline becomes flesh and bone, much too close.

There are two folding chairs waiting on the abandoned station platform. Alina has only heard of places like this, forgotten or hidden away, but has never seen one. There’s a card table set up between the seats, with a bottle of kvass, two glasses, and a softly glowing tablet, the only visible light source in this gloomy place. It would almost be romantic, all this mystery and attention, had she not seen the blood on this man’s pale hands only the night before.

Alina sits, happy to place something concrete between them, folding herself into the chair even as he leans back and spreads out, at perfect calculated ease.

A flick of her fingers under the table confirms the worst of her fears. They’re too far underground for her to summon sunlight. The soft glow of the tablet wavers at her call, nothing else. The man they call Darkling smirks, and at his command a few dusty lightbulbs flicker to life on the walls, pushing his shadows back. Ivan must be lurking about somewhere, out of sight.

“You betrayed me,” he says, voice soft.

She can see his face clearly now, and Alina’s breath catches in her throat. It’s not fair, that pull he has on her, even now. Electric and calming all at once, like she’s just remembered how to breath. She hates herself for the sudden desire to measure up to his gaze, to prove herself.

To apologize.

She forces her face into a scoff instead, reminding herself that she is in the right this time. “You lied to me.”

“I said I wanted to build a new world with you. That hasn’t changed.”

He’d not mentioned the graves piled up in the foundation. Alina bites her lip. He’s dangerous, she can’t let that voice of his - so reasonable, so reassuring, like steel wrapped in silk - make her forget.

“You left a few details out,” she bites out.

He doesn’t argue. Instead, he taps the tablet in front of him with a fingertip, scrolling over a screen she can’t see.

“Malyen Oretsev,” he reads the name aloud, “caucasian male, 26 years of age, 6.2, approximately 180 pounds, wears bad band shirts, wanted under charges of desertion and abandoning his post only a month ago.” His eyes flick up to meet Alina’s, “child of the foster system, then ward of the state before joining the army. Current residence is 1237 Kermazin, outer Os Alta.” He smiled, almost kind, and entirely patronizing, sliding the tablet across the table to lie face up in front of Alina.

“Some details you failed to mention,” he says. And this time, the words come with a bite.

The screen displays a series of photos, and Alina scrolls through them with a growing sense of dread. A formal shot of Mal facing the camera in his uniform for his military ID. A paparazzi style shot of him moving into the Kermazin flat. Here he was catching the train, buying groceries, standing on the street staring after a car. That was the day he’d first spotted her - their eyes meeting through tinted glass for the first time in five years.

Finally the two of them last night, outside the theatre…

Morozova’s eyes are hard this time, as Alina looked up from the photo of herself wrapped up in another man’s arms.

“What do you want?” she asked, frightened at how small her voice sounded, echoing back at her from the shadows.

A train passes, throwing noise and light their way, catching Alina’s hair in it’s breeze and throwing it over her shoulders. For a brief moment Morozova’s face is lit in a sort of halo, and she sees him smile at the victory, all teeth and glittering eyes.

Then the train is gone, and he’s pouring himself a glass of kvass, surrounded by shadow once again. He takes a sip, stretching out the silence before answering her question.

“I want to tear this world apart, Alina Starkov, and to build a new one in it’s place. Better, stronger, where my people will prosper. And I want you at my side while I do it.” A parody of his promise, once whispered amid candlelight and champagne, now a threat hissed over kvass in the dark.

“I want you.” He says, as simply as he might observe that her dress is blue.

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I’m a patient man, Alina,” he smiles at her, almost sad, “I can wait.”

She looks down, and Mal’s face stares up at her, laughing with her. Open and vulnerable. Her words from that first meeting flashing through her mind.

_He owns us all._

The man they call The Darkling smiles, as though he knows what she’s thinking.

“All I want right now, is for you to phone your little boyfriend and tell him plans have changed. Tell him to get on a plane and fly far away where I will never have to find him,” he says, voice soft, even as he delivers a threat, “And then I want to put this whole business behind us, and go home.”

Home. The flat he’d bought and paid for, with a Grisha guard standing at the door. A gilded cage.

But Mal - beautiful, innocent Mal whose only crime was being her friend - at least Mal could be free.

Alina takes the slim phone he slides across the table and dials.


	2. The Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The video has over six thousand views, and it only went up an hour ago. Alina presses play for the fourth time and watches her life fall to pieces around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There's a guy who doesn't listen to "no" at the beginning of this chapter. Nothing even vaguely graphic and he doesn't get far. But if that's a trigger just be aware.

**Six Months Ago:**

Ruby’s birthday is really the only reason that Alina is even at a club on a friday night. It’s not that she’s a snob, or a prude, or even that she’s especially shy. Nightclubs just aren’t her thing. They’re expensive and loud and people tend to forget personal space is a thing while inside them. She has never been quite so aware of this as she is right now, pinned against a wall with a stranger’s hot breath on her neck.

“Let’s go somewhere quieter,” he’s mumbling into her neck.

Alina already has one hand pressed against his chest, but he’s much bigger than her, and it’s not doing any good.

“Nope, loud is good,” she mutters, pushing and receiving absolutely no indication that he notices, “Is that why you didn’t hear me say no repeatedly for the last ten minutes?”

No response. He’s… oh dear, he’s practically nuzzling her neck now.

He has a paw up her shirt, and Alina is considering how much trouble she’d get in for stabbing a man with a stiletto - of the footwear variety - when he says something that makes her snap.

“C’mon babe, I don’t got a conscription date.”

Shock freezes her in place. “What did you just say?”

“The Rubes told me ‘bout your army boy. Left you all alone, needing a man in the big city…” he leans a little closer, clearly insinuating that he is very interested in being that man.

“I said I’m not interested.” Her words come out stiff, cold, and apparently unheard, because he only leans closer, hand creeping up her shirt, the other circling her arm and effectively pinning her to the wall. Alina is going to seriously reconsider friendship with someone who goes by the nickname “The Rubes” and tells complete strangers her deepest and most painful secrets. Just as soon as she gets out of… whatever this is.

“No one will ever know.” He whispers.

And that’s the truth of it, she thinks. From what she’s gathered from his drunken mumbles, he’s one of Ruby’s rich boyfriend’s friends, and she’s just another nameless nearly-broke student from lower Os Alta. He’ll take, she’ll give, and tomorrow morning he’ll leave without remembering her name. And he’ll do it again and again and again. And frankly, Alina is sort of tired of people taking from her and leaving.

She’s definitely not thinking of Mal as she shoves the idiot away, sunlight exploding from her fingertips.

…

The memories get hazy after that. A bouncer chases her down, predictably, while not-conscripted-creep stumbles onto the dance floor. Alina catches a glimpse of him pawing up a poor blonde as she’s tossed out the door.

And then she’s standing on the pavement, dazed and regretting that third drink, because she’s pretty sure that she just shot sunlight out of her fingertips, and that’s just not possible.

Maybe she is a little tipsier than she thought though, because she snaps two fingers expectantly. Nothing happens.

Of course nothing happens. She’s a barista, an orphan with four years worth of student debt, barely avoiding conscription herself. She’s not Grisha. She’s not powerful.

And now she’s not powerful, slightly tipsy, and alone outside at night.

With a sigh, Alina files away whatever freak accident just happened as something sober Alina will have to deal with tomorrow morning, clutches her purse to her side, and begins the long walk home.

 …

She wakes up with a headache and sore feet, the usual black circles glaring back at her from under her eyes in the bathroom mirror as she brushes her teeth. She sticks out her tongue at the tired looking girl and puts on her uniform for work. One perk of working at a coffee shop is that she doesn’t have to make the stuff at home. She’s almost out the door, kicking aside the shoes she’d dropped haphazardly over the threadbare carpet, when her phone buzzes in her pocket. It’s a message from Ruby, devoid of emoticons, which is unusual.

_Why didn’t you tell me you were Grisha?_

She’s attached a link at the bottom, which takes Alina to youtube with a single swipe.

Her shoulder bag drops to the floor with a thud, and it’s not until she’s watched the video through for the third time that Alina realizes that at some point she sat down with her back pressed against the wall and her feet straight out in front of her like a little kid, or someone in shock. She lowers the phone with some effort, ripping her eyes away from the screen that confirms the weird fuzzy dream from last night was not actually a dream.

SUN SUMMONER FREAKS OUT AT CLUB reads the caption. It has over six thousand views, and it only went up an hour ago.

Alina presses play for the fourth time and watches her life fall to pieces around her.

… 

Alina’s passed her twentieth viewing when someone knocks on the door, the noise startling her eyes away from the screen. She hadn’t realized how on edge she is until she’s jumping up on shaking legs, phone clattering to the floor, and pointing a shoe in front of her like a weapon at the closed door.

Which, of course, still has the key in the lock, and is most definitely not locked. Just as she contemplates yelling “I’m not home!” and seeing how far that gets her, the door swings open to reveal a man in a black suit.

He’s beautiful, that’s the first place her clearly irrational brain goes, with slate grey eyes and pale features that look like they might have been carved from marble. He also looks like he might be repressing a smirk.

“Hello Alina,” he says, voice as smooth as velvet, “may we come in?”

It must be have been a rhetorical question, because when she doesn’t speak he waltzes on in like he owns the place, bringing a host of grey clad men in behind him. They swarm past her like beetles, dress shoes clacking against the floor, vanishing down into all three rooms of her slightly pathetic flat.

“All clear!” she hears one of them yell. 

The man in black closes the door behind him with a click, turning the lock and pocketing her keys. Alina doesn’t realize she’s still holding the shoe in front of her until gentle fingers curl around her wrist. She swallows and allows him to lower her arm, taking the heel from her grasp and placing it carefully on the floor.

“I didn’t… I’m not whatever they’re saying I am.” She says. Her voice comes out about an octave higher than she’d intended.

The man in black smiles, hand still wrapped around her wrist, eyes holding her own. 

“I just want to talk.” He says, “do you have somewhere we can sit?” 

And that’s how she finds herself sitting across from the man who calls himself Alexander Morozova, as one of the other suits - Ivan - pours tea. He does not look like someone accustomed to making, drinking, or serving the beverage, and when he rifles through her cabinets for sugar, Alina catches a glimpse of a holster at his waist.

Being served tea by someone carrying a gun is by far the least ludicrous thing that has happened to her in the last twenty four hours, but Alina finds herself suddenly suppressing the uncontrollable urge to laugh. When Ivan presents them with a pile of napkins, the tiniest smidgeon of a giggle manages to weasel it’s way through her sealed lips. They’re paper, printed in a pink floral pattern. Something Ana Kuya left behind after her one and only visit, and Ivan tosses them onto the table as if they’re a personal affront. With that single gesture the giggle turns into a full fledged laugh, and refuses to end, until she’s hiccuping, and using one of the aforementioned napkins to wipe away hysterical tears.

Ivan and the Morozova both look at her as if she’s quite lost her mind.

“Sorry,” she gasps, wondering why she’s apologizing to men who essentially broke into her flat, “It’s just… been a really weird day.”

Morozova’s lips are turning up in a smirk again, even as Ivan storms off, and he smiles at her like they share a secret. “Oh Alina,” he says, “you have absolutely no idea.”

He looks a little too smug, and if this were any other day, and his eyes were not quite so compelling, Alina would probably have pulled away and lost interest in him right then. But he’s looking at her like she’s something miraculous, like she’s the start of something, and Alina suddenly would very much like to measure up to whatever expectation he’s placing on her. 

“The whole world out there is blowing up over a very badly filmed, possibly edited, video.” He says, perfectly calm. “Now, I’d like to think I would know, if a sun summoner was living within a few miles of my very own palace, but the world is a tricky place.”

He’s some sort of Grisha then. Alina had suspected it, should have known it from the start, but the mention of the little palace - the Grisha training grounds - only a short tube ride away from her flat, all but confirmed it. But before she can properly dig into that, he’s placed a hand over hers on the table, fingertips brushing her own, and Alina’s breath catches in her throat.

“You can trust me Alina.”

Alina is keenly aware of his touch, his fingers trailing over her wrist now, searching for something she doesn’t even have a name for yet. It’s electric, the pull between his skin and her own. She tightens her other hand into a fist in her lap and concentrates on the bite of nails into skin.

“I don’t know what happened. Honest.” Her voice comes out steady this time.

“I believe you,” he says, “but I need to find out.”

And then the room goes dark.

She’s blind, but all she can focus on is the feel of his fingers around her wrist. It’s a vice grip now, and she can feel something searching her, reaching inside and pulling, calling to her. Deep inside, something of her own answers. Not quite knowing why, Alina scrambles to push it back down. Whatever it is, it will tear her apart if it gets free, and knows instinctively that putting it in this man’s hands is a very very bad idea.

The pull goes dead, and she exhales. A sigh of relief. 

“Not quite so fast.” That velvety voice again, pressing something into her arm.

Something cold. Steel.

It’s cutting into her by the time she realizes it’s a knife. And as the pain slices into her skin, the thing resurfaces from deep within her.

And before she can stop it, the room is exploding in a flurry of light.

When she opens her eyes Aleksander Morozova is wiping off his knife with one of the horrible napkins, and the room has fallen completely silent. The suits who had all previously been actively invisible appeared stunned, staring with open mouths, hands frozen in their tasks.

Even Ivan, still holding the teapot, looks startled. If she weren’t so completely terrified, she might take some pleasure in that.

So the dream was real. Real as the blood dripping down her arm onto the tablecloth, and the last remnants of sunlight skittering across the floor and ceiling.

She has the sudden realization that she’s cold. She’s always been cold, always been cold and never known it, except for that moment last night, and a few seconds ago. Now the sensation is painfully obvious, and she fights the urge to gather the light in her hands again, to feel it wash over her skin in a wave of heat.

She stares down at her hands, expectant. Nothing happens. Beneath them, blood is slowly staining the yellowed tablecloth 

“Here,” Morozova picks up a napkin and presses it to the wound, “hold that there.”

Numbly, she applies the required pressure. He lets go of her wrist when he stands up, and Alina feels the sudden absence like a blow. The surety she’d felt only the moment before, the sudden burst of power and security, all gone, leaving her an empty shell.

“How long do we have until the first assassin gets through the door?” Morozova asks the room.

One of the suits looks up from the laptop he’s commandeered. “Five minutes,” he says.

“Ivan, get her out.” Morozova says. He doesn’t raise his voice at all, but it’s clearly an order, and before Alina knows what’s happening, she’s being hauled up out of her chair by the other man.

He doesn’t seem so funny now that he’s manhandling her towards the door. 

“Let go of me!” she says, mind racing to catch up. The word assassin was just used way too casually for her comfort.

He doesn’t, so she twists as violently as she can, breaking his hold and dropping the bloody napkin in the process.“You can’t just come into my home and…” 

Her voice cuts off, her body freezing in place as something clamps around her lungs, cutting off her air. Ivan’s fist is curled idly by his side, but the glitter in his eye says he knows exactly what he’s doing. 

He’s a Heartrender.

“Be gentle Ivan,” comes a chiding voice. Across the room Morozova raises an eyebrow, a warning in his tone, “she’s Grisha now.”

The Heartrender drops his hand and Alina’s breath returns in a painful gust.

Ivan’s hand is still twitching, like he’s ready for a second try. Alina takes a few steps backwards, putting distance between herself and the Grisha. He scowls at her, and she scowls back.

Across the room, she can almost hear Morozova’s frustration as her blood begins to drip on the floor. They’re wasting time.

Morozova sighs, “Just be careful then,” he says, “and get her out of here.” 

Before she can turn and run Ivan’s hand is up again, and it’s almost blissfully painless this time, as she slips into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, apologies to anyone who hates gratuitous flashbacks, because the next few chapters are going to be gratuitous flashbacks.
> 
> On the other hand... Ivan serving tea angrily is now a thing?

**Author's Note:**

> I literally have no idea where this is going guys. Ideas and thoughts are appreciated...


End file.
